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"Making a listing of movies that seem underrated or underappreciated is one thing; accounting for the ones that generate religious fervor is another," Adam Nayman writes in this history of the cult motion-picture show. "Cult films come in all varieties—and sometimes with vigorous debate about their status attached—but 18-carat, possessive devotion is the baseline."

This calendar week on The Ringer, we celebrate those movies that from humble or overlooked beginnings rose to prominence through the support of their obsessive fan bases. The movies that were besides heady for mainstream audiences; the comedies that were before their time; the small indies that inverse the direction of Hollywood. Welcome to Cult Picture Calendar week.

To kicking things off: a ranking. This ranking was assembled through the votes of Ringer staff members. And though in that location is no official definition for a cult moving-picture show—near times, you know it when you run into information technology—voters were asked to consider only films that (a) were not successful at the box function, (b) were non widely and initially praised by critics, and (c) gained popularity only after they left theaters, whether past discussion of rima oris, midnight screenings, or home-video success. Without further ado, here is The Ringer's ranking of the 50 best cult movies. Maybe it'll make y'all mad and inspire you to defend your favorites. Merely that'southward OK—after all, that's what cult movies are all near.

l. Escape From New York

On his fashion to an international peace summit in, of all places, Hartford, Connecticut—which might exist the the most batshit part of a batshit pic—the president's aeroplane is hijacked past terrorists. POTUS (Donald Pleasence) manages to get away in an escape pod, which is good. But the pod crashes in Manhattan, which is bad. In this dystopian version of America, Manhattan has been converted into an open prison—the bridges are carpeted with mines and a fifty-foot-loftier wall surrounds the isle. Prisoners are condemned to life and run amok. Information technology is not a place you lot desire to be trapped in, and someone must rescue the president—that someone is Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell), a disgraced erstwhile special operations soldier who was convicted of robbing the Federal Reserve and rocks a mean centre patch. The government offers Snake a pardon if he rescues the president, merely but to make certain he doesn't try any funny business, they jab him with a needle and inject him with "micro explosives" that will detonate in less than 24 hours if he doesn't become the job washed. And then they transport him off to infiltrate the island on a stealth glider, which Snake naturally lands on top of one of the towers at the World Trade Eye. The film was made in 1981. I imagine cocaine was involved. —John Gonzalez

49. The Wicker Human

A cult movie in every sense of the word—and non to be mistaken with the Nic Cage–starring remake that is iconic for a completely dissimilar reason—The Wicker Human is part of the grand tradition of horror movies pulling the rug from under its audience. Whatsoever sensible viewer would find Neil Howie (played past Edward Woodward)—a stern, devoutly Christian police force sergeant saving himself for marriage—as a major buzzkill on a Scottish isle where Celtic gods are worshipped, the ale flows freely, and promiscuity is highly encouraged. But every bit Sergeant Howie dutifully searches the isle for a missing local girl, the carefree attitude of the inhabitants gives way to something far more sinister. Much of The Wicker Man'due south slow burn appeal lies in the manner that kickoff-fourth dimension director Robin Hardy builds an uneasy temper with Pagan imagery, and shifts your allegiances to the virtually milquetoast protagonist imaginable. By the time the bodily Wicker Man pops into frame for the motion picture's terrifying climax, The Wicker Human being cements itself as one of the genre's all-time greats. —Miles Surrey

48. The Man Who Fell to World

A true cult moving-picture show is no mere crowd-pleaser: It'south challenging, it's exasperating, it's dank to the point of frigidity. So information technology went for Nicolas Roeg's uncompromising 1976 sci-fi archetype, which starred a flame-haired David Bowie and inspired reviews packed with phrases similar "preposterous and posturing" (that was Roger Ebert) or "mad and brilliantly infuriating" (that was Little White Lies and got proudly blurbed in the trailer for the 40th-anniversary restoration). The Man Who Cruel to Earth is long, eerie, unsettlingly erotic (expect out for that pistol), confusing to many, and fiercely beloved by anyone who sticks with it. "The temper is hazy and medicated," wrote The Ringer's own Adam Nayman in his eulogy for Roeg in 2018, "and every so oft, images emerge from the fog to stupor and startle." Requite information technology your full attention and it'll give you the world. Because when it comes to David Bowie in movie theater, accept no substitutes. —Rob Harvilla

47. Ghost World

Enid doesn't want to become to college. She doesn't want a chore. She doesn't want her dad to get back together with Maxine. Looking at the broad world after her college graduation, she doesn't actually know what she wants—it'south the pressure of having to brand a choice that rubs her the incorrect mode. Does she accept to?

Information technology makes sense that Terry Zwigoff's 2001 comedy has earned the championship of cult classic. Despite working with what appears to exist a shoestring upkeep, the costumes (Enid rocks a dazzling new fit in almost every scene), ready designs, soundtrack, and performances are all top notch, and then unique. But the picture has that fourth dimension-automobile quality in more than just the visuals. The general ennui and discontentment of the early aughts captured here and expressed mostly by Enid are not told with a stoic rallying cry, just more of a long, drawn-out, overdramatic sigh. —Mose Bergmann

46. Kids

In his early 50s, Larry Clark took up skateboarding. Already a famed—but controversial—photographer for his series documenting drug abuse and sex work, Clark had his sights set on directing his commencement feature. But he needed it to feel accurate. So he spent a few years at the offset of the 1990s hanging around New York City's growing skate scene. He studied how the kids dressed and talked. He watched them fight and get high. He wanted to empathise them. The resulting film, Kids, may not exactly do that, but it did scare the hell out of parents and made a generation of young people feel like someone was trying to hear them.

Initially released in 1995—1 week after Clueless—Kids focuses on 24 hours in the life of a grouping of New York teens at the height of the AIDS epidemic. Clarke hired a xix-twelvemonth-one-time Harmony Korine to write the script—information technology took him three weeks, he says—and cast a group of relative unknowns to deed. (Skaters Justin Pierce and Harold Hunter were the closest Kids had to stars, simply the two female leads, Chloë Sevigny and Rosario Dawson, would before long break out.) Kids captures underage sex (and sexual attack), drug use, and violence with a documentary-like feel. For some critics, it was piffling more than filth. But for kids like me, ones who were about to come up of age and were obsessed with skateboarding and rap music, information technology was vital. —Justin Sayles

45. La Haine

Mathieu Kassovitz's black-and-white portrait of a Paris banlieue follows 3 residents—Vinz, a hotheaded Jew who dreams of going full-on Taxi Driver on a cop; Hubert, a Black boxer and staunch not-interventionist; and Saïd, a Northward African ladies' man and mediator—in the 24-hour aftermath of a violent clash with the police that left their friend Abdel in critical condition. Equally their mean solar day unfolds, and the audience is fed crumbs of plot, a simple, daunting question presents itself: What happens when three men on the brink get a hold of a cop's .44 Magnum revolver? The eventual answer offers a clear-eyed view of systemic racism, police force brutality, and the hatred (la haine) that pulsed through poor French neighborhoods in the belatedly '80s and '90s. La Haine's 1995 premiere at Cannes moved the audition to a standing ovation, and its popularity in French republic inspired the then-prime minister to concur a mandatory screening for his entire cabinet. 20-six years afterwards, the picture feels eerily prescient, even in its scant political references: In one scene, Saïd recites a spontaneous derogatory poem nigh Jean-Marie Le Pen, a far-right politico who built his career on immigration fear mongering throughout the '70s, '80s, and '90s. Years later, his daughter, Marine, reemerged to practise the aforementioned, recycling that aforementioned xenophobia for the age of the net. La Haine reminds us that no matter how their policies are packaged, they sow inhumanity all the aforementioned. —Alyssa Bereznak

44. Harold and Maude

Information technology's not ridiculous to say that watching Harold and Maude tin change your life. On paper, the film may seem like a dark romantic comedy based on the relationship betwixt a xx-year-former male child infatuated with suicide and an 79-year-old woman who lives each day similar it's her final, but it digs and then much deeper than that. Harold and Maude is a celebration of life. Director Hal Ashby wants to eliminate societal tropes like historic period and gender in order to fully cherish living and appreciate the liberty of it all. It feels similar watching a dream that'due south speaking directly to you lot, urging y'all to understand that life is worth living—non in any particular way, but in whatever way feels authentic. Cult movies are beloved for being weird or campy, and Harold and Maude is no exception, but the appeal goes beyond that. I could proceed and on; instead I'll leave you with the Cat Stevens lyrics that reverberate through the movie:

Well if you want to sing out, sing out
And if you want to be free, be free
'Crusade there's a million things to exist
You know that there are.

—Sean Yoo

43. Akira

Information technology took me a decade or so to appreciate Katsuhiro Otomo's grotesque masterpiece Akira, an existential crisis masquerading as an activity movie. It's postwar Japanese history reimagined as a cyberpunk ecstasy, but it's more thoughtful and melancholy than its more splashy and violent elements might suggest. In Neo-Tokyo, the gang leader Tetsuo and his best friend, Kaneda, stumble—or, rather, crash—into a paranormal enquiry project undertaken by the Japan Self-Defense Forces, imbuing Tetsuo with psychokinetic powers. Tetsuo's awakening culminates in his spectacular self-devastation, taking the city downwardly with him. In that location's so much shouting and dismemberment in Akira: "Tetsuo!" "Kaneda!" "Tetsuo!" "Kaneda!" Merely higher up all, Akira sketches a civilization caught between its previous plummet and imminent decline. —Justin Charity

42. Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas

Terry Gilliam movies are experiences, human. The former Monty Python histrion has a knack for making movies that go heavy on the spice, so to speak. If you blend together themes of grotesqueness, wonder, beauty, profundity, rage, and nihilism, yous wouldn't necessarily wait the resulting movie to piece of work. But Gilliam makes it piece of work—Fear and Loathing is probably the best case of that. Adapted from Hunter S. Thompson'south 1971 novel of the same name, Fear and Loathing isn't necessarily a fun sentry. The diabolical drug-befuddled Vegas trip taken by Johnny Depp'due south Raoul and Benicio Del Toro's Dr. Gonzo takes a turn for the worse, not simply once but at to the lowest degree iii times, and each time information technology's a footling more sickening. But it's the moments afterwards these nightmarish encounters of profound clarity and truth, that are so often institute in the midst of a hungover stupor, that elevate the film from beingness simply a wild, sick, ride. —Bergmann

41. Hedwig and the Aroused Inch

It belonged on our list of the 40 All-time Pic Musicals of the by 40 years, and it belongs hither, too. John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask's flatulent Off-Broadway stone opera sensation fabricated a seamless transition to the silver screen with Mitchell both directing and starring—the afterwards the showing the better, the louder the sound system the better, the more scandalized the unprepared viewers around yous the ameliorate. "Angry Inch" is the angriest, gnarliest, and well-nigh infectious rock-canticle-as-X-rated-plot summary e'er born, and "The Origin of Love" is a goosebump power ballad orders of magnitude prettier than information technology has any right to be. Hedwig is defiantly fearless, proudly tasteless, and for all its fealty to '70s glam and '90s downtown-NYC absurd, triumphantly timeless. —Harvilla

40. Stranger Than Paradise

The true power of Jim Jarmusch's breakout sophomore feature is how information technology takes elements of art-firm cinema—experimental pacing, cinemagraphic nods to Fellini, deadpan humour—and makes them so accessible. Broken into 67 uninterrupted shots and focused on Hungarian expat Willie, his emigrating cousin Eva, and his best pal Eddie, the moving-picture show is at once a commentary of the dullness of life and the hollowness of the American experience. It's also a route-trip movie—though when they're viewed through Jarmusch'due south black-and-white lens, Florida, Manhattan, and a frozen Lake Erie all look similar. ("You know, it'due south funny—yous come to someplace new, and everything looks but the same," Eddie comments at ane signal.) But mostly, Stranger Than Paradise is a hilarious story most a couple of good-natured dimwits and the cousin who gets caught in their schemes. Today, the movie is considered i of the more influential films of the 1980s. Even almost twoscore years later on, information technology'll put a spell on you, only similar Eva's favorite song. —Sayles

39. Empire Records

This movie earned just $300,000 at the box part despite its $10 million budget. It's as well hardly a cinematic masterpiece—Empire Records holds but a 29 percentage fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. So how did the movie go from unmitigated disaster to cult classic? That begins with repeat plays on cable TV in the belatedly '90s (and after inexpensive DVDs at the appearance of the medium). Information technology also boasts loads of camp appeal, with cheesy one-liners and a Breakfast Social club–lite ensemble of teens that gave many people at least one character to identify with. But Empire Records as well focused on something that feels quaint at present: how to stay true and avert selling out (in this example, how to keep your indie record shop from falling into the easily of a Belfry Records stand up-in). That resonated at the time, even if it came in a bomb of a movie. And that's reason plenty to gloat King Manning Twenty-four hour period all over again. —Sayles

38. Clue

Yous tin kind of empathize why Clue irked people when it was released in 1985. Its silliness is well-nigh rebelliously unceasing; it hardly seems like it has whatever interest in resembling a normal picture show; information technology has multiple endings. But those are the sort of things that can historic period like wine and engender a devoted following. Anchored by the manic energy of cult film icon Tim Curry—who's surrounded by several top-level character actors like Christopher Lloyd, Eileen Brennan, Madeline Kahn, and Michael McKean—this film based on a board game simply wants to take you for a ride. It'due south so self-assured in its humor that it's practically waving in its compatriots, and thumbing its olfactory organ at its detractors. If yous don't like it, well, that's on you. You lot just don't get it, and you lot're more than welcome to get the way of the singing telegram girl. —Andrew Gruttadaro

37. Event Horizon

Perhaps an R-rated sci-fi motion-picture show in which the hero from Jurassic Park rips out his optics and tries to transport Laurence Fishburne to a hell dimension was ever destined to exist a box office bomb, only take cipher abroad from Issue Horizon: this pic absolutely rips. Mixing elements of The Shining and Hellraiser on a doomed spaceship orbiting Neptune, director Paul W.Due south. Anderson goes all in on a film whose initial cut horrified test audiences and Paramount executives, who assumed he was making a darker version of Star Trek instead of employing porn stars as extras for graphic sequences of sex and violence. (In Anderson'due south ain words: "I call up that peradventure they idea we were shooting close-ups of people pressing buttons or something like that.") That something as diabolically inventive equally Event Horizon came through the major studio pipeline is incredible in and of itself. And while it might've bombed upon release in the '90s, Effect Horizon endures equally a batshit masterpiece. —Surrey

36. Labyrinth

Labyrinth is famous for its status every bit one of Jim Henson'south darker and weirder films; and for its office in catapulting the immature Jennifer Connelly to stardom; and for putting David Bowie in high-heeled boots and a Tina Turner wig. As well it should be—the movie sometimes gets a petty lost in the mid-'80s fantasy canon, but it'due south a foundational example of the genre and should be respected as such. However, Labyrinth's greatest contribution to the culture is "Magic Trip the light fantastic toe," the anthemic fantasy power pop number that stops the show halfway through and ends with Goblin Rex Ziggy Stardust chucking a toddler nigh 30 feet upward in the air. This song is a jam and a banger, and information technology's amid the all-time the Hensonverse has produced. —Michael Baumann

35. UHF

A couple of years ago, I wrote nearly the enduring wonderfulness of "Weird" Al Yankovic's Reagan-era media spoof—a film tuned into the same irreverent, quasi-surrealist wavelength equally Plane! and Pee-wee'southward Big Take a chance that played to mostly empty theaters before beingness reclaimed as a cult item on VHS. At dwelling, it was possible for viewers to rewind and replay every inane, absurd joke ("What time is information technology?" [Paw punches through the drywall displaying a wristwatch.] "7:30? Oh no!") and to appreciate the level of visual and sonic particular in Yankovic'south movie and music-video parodies. As somebody who saw the video for "Beverly Hillbillies" long earlier communicable "Coin for Nothing," at that place's no question which ane keeps playing on a loop in my head. —Adam Nayman

34. Paid in Total

The matter about a superlative cult classic is that it never really concerns itself with who's going to tune in. It's only there, unmoving and unflinching. If, by chance, you decide to give it a go, and so good. If not, oh well. There's something stubborn and annoying nearly that, simply also something tremendously endearing. Despite all the odds, Paid in Full is a distillation of that ethos. Information technology is a moving picture backed by Jay-Z and Damon Dash, cofounders of the once-titanic and at present-defunct rap label Roc-a-Fella Records, at their cultural and capitalistic zenith. It is too an accommodation of a real-life story about brothers and cash and drugs that had, over a number of years, taken on a folklorish hue in certain corners of New York—a tale laced with equal amounts of greed and love, serendipity and machination. That it is set in a world known only to a few, and has been upheld by a also exclusive network, is kind of the point. If you know, you know. —Lex Pryor

33. Big Problem in Picayune China

Kurt Russell is a tough-as-nails truck driver who has to rescue his friend'due south fiancée from a crime lord slash sorcerer. What more do you want from a moving-picture show? Information technology fits all the criteria for a cult pic: it doesn't make whatsoever sense, information technology's extremely campy, and it had a disastrous initial release. Big Problem in Picayune China was originally scripted as a Western but was rewritten as a fantasy martial arts movie—perfect for action sci-fi icon John Carpenter, who flexes his muscle throughout the film. From supernatural powers to badass weapons, the activeness scenes are absurd and consistently chaotic; the acting is super cringe and the colors are overly vibrant. Yet somehow this film continues to be rewatchable. A 78 percent Rotten Tomatoes score is rare for a cult motion-picture show, but like most cult movies, Big Trouble in Little Communist china only gets better over fourth dimension. —Yoo

32. Super Troopers

Adept cult movies launch a bevy of inside jokes. Great cult movies spark an unabridged cinematic universe, which is what Super Troopers did for Broken Cadger. Non only the 2018 sequel merely Beerfest, Club Dread, even The Slammin' Salmon all sprouted from i extremely silly barracks of the Vermont State Law. Super Troopers is so much a part of the cultural furniture information technology's fifty-fifty ruining mid-inning interviews in baseball games.

I'm going to end this blurb because the only thing in my mind correct now is Brian Cox saying, "Shut up, Farva." —Baumann

31. Brazil

Terry Gilliam'due south Brazil—which does not take identify in Brazil, and is instead named for the vocal "Aquarela do Brasil"—is like 1984 on acrid. And though Orwell's nigh famous work inspired the picture show, the comparison doesn't actually do the dystopian one-act justice. It has some of the weirdest visuals ever seen on film. Have, for example, the scene in which Jim Broadbent's plastic surgeon, Dr. Jaffe, promises to brand Katherine Helmond's Ida Lowry wait 20 years younger. The doctor spends several minutes yanking on his patient'due south face like he'due south a salt h2o taffy pulling car—while she'due south awake and talking to him.

Co-ordinate to Helmond, who died at 89 in 2019, Gilliam'southward sales pitch for the role was unproblematic: "I have a part for you, and I desire yous to come over and do it, merely you lot're non going to look very prissy in information technology." —Alan Siegel

xxx. The Raid: Redemption

If y'all've kept upwards with action movies over the past decade, you've seen The Raid even if you've never seen The Raid. It'southward typical of a cult movie in that mode, more influential than it was profitable. Maybe there's still time to pull royalties from John Wick (which featured The Raid 2 stars Cecep Arif Rahman and Yayan Ruhian in its third installment) or Atomic Blonde, amidst the many other American movies that owe Gareth Evans and Co. an obvious debt. Even all these years later on the fact, it remains incredible that hand-to-hand combat this fast could besides be this clear; the staging and movement of every scene tracks smoothly, even equally martial artists and stunt professionals run across the tabletops of a drug lab and slide through mounds of cocaine. The script for The Raid is probably a pamphlet, but the storyboarding must exist a tome. Its choreography begs to be shared, parceled out to friends a clip at a time until they submit to its head-bashing dazzler. What they find when they watch it in total is a story of survival—the concrete act of it, exhaustingly told through what amounts to a full-picture set slice. —Rob Mahoney

29. Idiocracy

The biggest result with Idiocracy is that the movie forecasted a gradual descent into crass, incompetent, lowest-common-denominator dystopia. Protagonist Joe Bauers (Luke Wilson) wakes up after 500 years in suspended animation to find an anti-intellectual land in abattoir under ex-wrestler/porn star President Camacho (Terry Crews), a vulgar, arrogant gasbag; as director and cowriter Mike Judge said in 2016, "I was off by 490 years." Judge as well said that the movie wasn't marketed at the time of its 2006 release in big part considering Play a trick on thought the pic would follow Office Space into the cult-moving-picture show catechism. If so, Fox proved prescient besides. Trump/Camacho comps have abounded since 2015, raising Idiocracy's reputation and profile to the point that it's remembered less as an uneven comedy than as an unheeded cautionary tale. In his Office Space review, Roger Ebert observed that Judge, an ex-animator, "treats his characters a little like drawing creatures." Equally it turns out, plenty of prominent real-life characters are similar cartoon creatures as well. —Ben Lindbergh

28. MacGruber

"'MacGruber' was a dumb idea written to the pinnacle of its intelligence," former SNL head writer Seth Meyers told The Ringer in 2020. "That's why it continued to get improve the longer they did it." Starring a profoundly committed Will Forte—at one betoken his graphic symbol has sex with his expressionless wife'south ghost in a cemetery—MacGruber is far better than it has any obligation to exist. And while the Jorma Taccone–directed, 1980s activity pic parody with a star-studded cast—Val Kilmer, Ryan Phillippe, Maya Rudolph, Kristen Wiig, Powers Boothe—bombed at the box part, x years later information technology's still one of the most quotable comedies of the 2000s.

In 2021, NBC is bringing MacGruber back for a streaming series. It'south unclear whether its hero will also bring back his infamous celery-aided diversionary tactic. —Siegel

27. Slap Shot

There's a lot that's already cultlike near hockey fans: They bow downwards to charismatic mulleted men; they're ever going on about leadership and something called "the code;" they're simultaneously desperate to spread the skillful word about the thing they honey well-nigh and immediately suspicious of anyone who wants to heed. So information technology's no surprise that Slap Shot, 1977'southward raucous, inspired-by-real-life pic nearly cartoonish machismo and small league hockey, is a motion-picture show with a cultish trajectory. The Paul Newman vehicle may have premiered to mixed reviews and middling box office returns—twenty other releases that twelvemonth grossed higher—but it's now a fixture on any list of best sports movies and practically a rite of passage for the too-young-and-soon-to-be-scandalized hockey fan.

What's more than, it volition exist inspiring referential, reverential costumes for time immemorial, an essential component of whatever cult film. I've done the math over the years, and in any given room of, say, a dozen Halloween revelers, you're bound to detect at least one Hanson blood brother—and probably three—shouting "I'grand listening to the fucking vocal!" at everybody and nobody in detail. —Katie Baker

26. American Psycho

A great flick for Christian Bale and people who want to beat Jared Leto to death with an ax; kind of an bad-mannered movie for people who unironically like Huey Lewis and the News. Some films gain cult status past reflecting niche social or creative groups who don't often get lionized in pop culture: goths, stoners, theater geeks, and so on. American Psycho is a bracing wait at the orthodox and the aspirational, caricaturing a sure grade and type of man by reducing him, similar a jam, to his barest urges. It's unsettling not only because of its graphic violence, but because Bale—in the hands of writer-director Mary Harron—is and then uncanny. —Baumann

25. They Live

Around the halfway mark of John Carpenter's 1988 classic They Live, the two leads, played by Roddy Piper and Keith David, go into a fight. See, Piper's character Aught has discovered a pair of sweet-looking sunglasses that when looked through, reveal the presence of conflicting infiltrators in our guild who accept been manipulating humans into subservient complacency through the media. Naught wants David'due south character Frank, to come across for himself. Frank doesn't want to. What follows is arguably the greatest, weirdest, longest, almost brutal, near funny, most intimate fight scene ever put to film.

I suspect that any motion picture that has such an iconic scene would reach the condition of cult classic, but the rest of the movie is just as worthy. Carpenter'due south blend of mail-Reagan American anticapitalist anxiety and extreme '80s camp with a dash of WWE sensibilities—all tied together with his extremely fun direction and score—results in a truly delightful experience, fabricated all the better by Piper's star performance and iconic one-liners. —Bergmann

24. Bloodsport

The Kumite is an illegal, no-holds-barred underground martial arts tournament in Hong Kong. The best fighters in the world participate; some of them die. This manifestly sounds like a expert fourth dimension to Regular army Captain Frank Dux (Jean-Claude Van Damme), who goes AWOL when Uncle Sam denies his request to compete in the international fight club. (Dux is an American but, delightfully, retains Van Damme'south distinctive Belgian-dusted accent.) In Hong Kong, Dux becomes fast friends with Ray Jackson, some other American fighter. Jackson almost immediately calls out Chong Li, the defending champ and the baddest of asses. This turns out to be a bad idea: Chong Li is a supervillain after all—we did a whole podcast on him—and he beats Jackson to within an inch of his life during their fight. So he snatches Jackson'south biker bandana and, while he lies there immobile, waves information technology around like a bays. All of which sets up the terminal showdown between Chong Li and Frank Dux—merely non before Dux does the splits multiple times, including in his hotel room and on the edge of a building high atop Hong Kong while soft stone plays in the background. Because it was Van Damme, and information technology was the '80s. —Gonzalez

23. Clerks

I wasn't even supposed to be here today! For a movie that luxuriates in the recesses of central-Jersey stagnation, Clerks makes for i hell of an origin story of a major Hollywood (and Twitter) ascendence. Filmmaker Kevin Smith maxed out credit cards and sold off his comic books to cobble together $27,575 to cocky-produce the black-and-white 1994 pic that was filmed at dark in the New Jersey Quick Stop and video shop where he worked by day. From there, it gained momentum like, well, a snowball: going from Sundance to Cannes to Miramax to the desk-bound of Alan Dershowitz to LaserDisc to, decades later on, the Library of Congress.

Like a proto-Loftier Maintenance, Smith'due south debut features the drudgery of commerce and the faded tapestry of the customers who whorl through. (Not all volition leave the place alive, and the main character, Dante, was almost ane of them: Smith'due south original cut left the poor guy shot dead, a choice that merely adds to the projection's lore.) And it spawned a loose only interwoven universe of characters and actors—including Smith himself equally the droll dealer Silent Bob—who appeared in Smith'south subsequent films, from Mallrats to Chasing Amy to Dogma and beyond. —Baker

22. The Evil Dead

If there's a blueprint for a cult flick, this indie provided it. Combine a talented director (Sam Raimi), an unknown but quirkily charismatic star (Bruce Campbell), a producer with a gilt bear upon (Cannes Movie Festival cofounder Irvin Shapiro), and a famous fan who helped push for a studio release (Stephen King), and chances are you'll become a word-of-rima oris hit.

Raimi's gnarly first professional person film, which takes place in a cabin in the woods, features the Volume of the Dead (the original championship), five possessed college kids, and terrifyingly demonic trees. Not merely did the horror classic spawn a honey franchise and make Campbell a B-movie icon, its influence tin can withal be seen in scary movies to this day. Every single horror-comedy of the past 40 years owes The Evil Expressionless. —Siegel

21. Showgirls

"Life sucks, shit happens … I'm a educatee of T-shirts." As fortune-cookie worldviews go, this line beats the hell out of Forrest Gump, and while Showgirls' reputation as the cinematic equivalent of a wet T-shirt contest officially ended Paul Verhoeven'south winning streak as Hollywood's reigning rex of stupid is as stupid does, information technology's clearly the superior picture nigh life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. By exclusively populating their Las Vegas "exposé" with American idiots—wannabe wink dancers; sharp-taloned showbiz lifers; corporate coke heads Robert Davi—Verhoeven and screenwriter Joe Eszterhas weren't and then much taking the path of least resistance as committing to a satirical vision whose scurrilous, picaresque backlog proved fifty-fifty more alienating than intended. Twenty-five years later, it's probably harder to find people who don't "get" Showgirls (or claim to) than people using it as a pop-cultural punch line. There's poetry in that—in the idea of an ugly, ruthless, surpassingly cynical movie whose time has come. —Nayman

20. The Thing

I'm non sure I've ever had a ameliorate theatrical feel than sitting in a packed firm for The Thing with enough newcomers to scream in panic when the hostility building among the crew of an Antarctic research base of operations finally gives way to pure trunk-snatching (or really, body-destroying) terror. Exit it to John Carpenter to discover the suspense in a blood test. The entire movie rides on the razor'due south edge between ambiguity and caption; even during the most thrilling reveals, nosotros acquire but enough to forget, for a moment, everything we still don't know. Characters disappear at disquisitional times. Desperation reads as suspect. The Thing dispenses with the deprival that often infects the first act of aliens-among-usa sci-fi and mainlines the paranoia instead, cut off rooms and backing its characters into corners until the entire base of operations is burned to the ground. Information technology's moody, information technology'southward gross, it'southward absolutely perfect. How did a world that loved both Alien and Halloween always plough upwardly its nose at The Matter? —Mahoney

nineteen. Fire Walk With Me

Twin Peaks: Burn Walk With Me was non met kindly upon its release, highlighted by its premiere being booed at Cannes in 1992. But while the initial consensus was disappointingly misguided, you can sympathise the impulse. Twin Peaks had just wrapped up its second and concluding season on ABC with a major cliffhanger, and David Lynch chose to follow upward the serial with what'southward substantially a prequel of Laura Palmer's last days. But Lynch has never been i for nostalgia, as evinced past the masterful 18-episode odyssey of Twin Peaks: The Return, and Fire Walk With Me excels on its ain terms. No longer only the homecoming queen found dead and wrapped in plastic, Fire Walk With Me unsparingly lets the viewer in on Laura's loneliness and suffering—along with the os-deep terror of her realization that the demonic presence assaulting her is actually her father. It'south a picture show of overwhelming pain, sorrow, and sympathy, held together with a committed lead functioning past Sheryl Lee that should've been showered with accolades. All told, Lynch put together a damn fine prequel that's just every bit great equally its predecessor. —Surrey

18. Ground forces of Darkness

"Dearest, you lot got existent ugly."

"Gimme some sugar, baby."

"This is my boomstick."

"Yo, she-bowwow: Let'due south get."

"Buckle upward, bonehead."

"Well hello, Mr. Fancy Pants."

"Lady, I'm agape I'thou gonna have to ask you to leave the store."

I could do this all 24-hour interval. In my twenties, I did do this all day. Horror superfans will rightly stick with the first 2 no-upkeep '80s Evil Dead movies directed by Sam Raimi and starring B-movie deity Bruce Campbell, and you guys have fun with that. But the R-rated Looney Tunes absurdity of 1992'due south trilogy-capping Army of Darkness is where it's at, sending Bruce dorsum to the Middle Ages, dialing downwards the gore (just a petty), cranking upwards the 3 Stooges slapstick, and emerging with the dumbest and most ingenious quote-car Midnight Movie of all fourth dimension. Merely remember: Klaatu Barada Nikto. —Harvilla

17. The Warriors

Public-transportation trips to Coney Isle—the New York Metropolis subway arrangement's southernmost last—are arduous plenty under normal circumstances. They're way worse when you lot're beingness hunted by police and a pack of murderous, sadistic gangs. Merely The Warriors, Walter Hill'southward 1979 accommodation of Sol Yurick'due south 1965 novel, showed united states that the ingredients of a actually crappy commute—including a passenger vehicle that tries to run y'all over rather than pick you up, a fire in a building correct next to the train tracks, and locals with Molotov cocktails—can brand for a memorable motion picture. The gritty, pulpy, stylized flick was conceived as a fantasy story, and its juxtaposition of a blighted existent-life landscape and a surreal, largely lawless struggle for survival get in disquieting and ludicrous at the same time. Its humdrum dialogue doesn't match its visual flair, but its menacing selection of creatively themed, matchy-matchy gangs make it an frequently-referenced film more than 40 years after its violence-ridden release. —Lindbergh

xvi. Repo Human being

The almost important thing you demand to know about this motion picture is that its main character is a 1964 Chevrolet Malibu. This car is everything. At that place may exist lethal aliens in the trunk. It glows greenish. And it might be a spaceship. Also, Emilio Estevez and Harry Dean Stanton play key roles. And the soundtrack features songs by hardcore bands like Black Flag, Suicidal Tendencies, and Circle Jerks. But let's finish there. Sharing whatsoever more plot details might ruin the fun. The dazzler of Repo Man is in its strangeness.

Alex Cox's violent and hilarious directorial debut, for which Iggy Pop provided the opening theme, is supposed to satirize the consumerism running rampant during the Reagan era. But the Los Angeles–set film—which was made for merely $1.5 1000000—is i of the best movies of the '80s simply considering it's full of endearingly weird shit. —Siegel

15. Oldboy

Oldboy isn't a movie yous recommend to someone so much as one you lot inflict on them. At its cadre is a mystery: Oh Dae-su, the sort of boozer who has to slur through a telephone call to his daughter to explain why he missed her 4th birthday, is abducted off the street and imprisoned for 15 years without explanation. Why would this happen? Who would go to such trouble to keep Dae-su captive in what looks the part of a grimy, locked-down cabin room? The answers to those questions are so shocking and so artfully revealed that they compelled viewers to pass effectually the Oldboy DVD to whomever would take it, if only to come across their own shattered viewing feel reflected back to them. It'southward a fitting class to cult status, considering Oldboy is ultimately a flick almost trauma and the tragedies we share. The noir of information technology all brings united states in, but Choi Min-sik'south leading performance—through every wailing fight and haunted grin—pulls us even to the places we'd rather not go. After watching information technology through, we tin finally run across the whole cruel mess for what information technology always was: the slow climb of an elevator to the penthouse floor. —Mahoney

14. The Room

Cult movies don't have to be bad movies—that category received a separate Ringer ranking—but The Room sits at the center of any Venn diagram that contains the two. No movie epitomizes "unintentionally terrible" better than Tommy Wiseau's incessantly quotable and confounding disasterpiece. Information technology's withal unclear what Wiseau'due south goals were or whether any element of The Room's weirdness was intentional—the consensus seems to exist "no"—but the film'south uncanny valley quality is function of its appeal. The Room is best enjoyed with an audition that's in on the joke, and if the pandemic does away with movie theaters, midnight screenings of the 99-infinitesimal … drama? … will be i of the nigh regrettable losses (fifty-fifty though the environs will be better off without the wasted spoons). The 2003 championship, which was memorably promoted with 1 billboard in Hollywood, is such a rich text that the making of the moving picture inspired multiple memoirs, a documentary, and an Oscar-nominated motion-picture show, a distinction few other cult movies tin can claim. Like its spiritual predecessor Ed Forest, The Disaster Artist is a testament to the agree cult movies have on our minds, even (or specially) when they await like nothing else we've watched. —Lindbergh

13. Evil Dead II

The sequel to Sam Raimi's seminal motel-in-the-woods splatter-fest isn't technically a one-man evidence, just a good portion of Evil Dead II is devoted to watching Bruce Campbell fend off an regular army of darkness single-handedly. Few actors tin claim to take earned their late-career, Comic Con victory lap more than Campbell, whose brilliantly physical acting—bandage iron jaw; flailing limbs; pratfalling body—provided Raimi with his most valuable special effect. No less than 1987's other brilliant alive-activity Looney Tunes movie—Raising Arizona, by Raimi pals Joel and Ethan Coen—Evil Dead II revels in the propulsive possibilities of camera move, taking the subjective stalker POV pioneered by John Carpenter in Halloween and turbocharging it into a tour de force roller-coaster ride. As for the gore, information technology flies around in such a colorful, expressionistic thing that nobody with an art gallery membership could even pretend to exist offended: You might as well storm out of a Jackson Pollock exhibition. "Level Ane viewers volition say [the moving-picture show] is in bad taste," wrote Roger Ebert. "Level Two folks such as myself will perceive that it is well-nigh bad taste." He was, of course, correct. —Nayman

12. Reservoir Dogs

What happens when a cult film drills so deep into the underbelly of moviegoing civilization that it comes out on the other side a mainstream staple? In the case of Reservoir Dogs, the tunnel it dug became a gateway—first for a generation of filmgoers into talky contained cinema, just then for decades afterward as its acclaimed director served as an administrator for schlock, genre, and international fare. It's impossible to separate Reservoir Dogs from the rise of Quentin Tarantino, especially as it heads its own subgenre within this list, flanked by Dazed and Confused, Eraserhead, and This Is Spinal Tap as early triumphs of soon-to-exist-revered filmmakers. The lack of theatrical success came at least in role from the fact that Tarantino wasn't yet Tarantino; he was just some former video store clerk tapping into what he loved most movies, serving up his own gangster classic named (perhaps apocryphally) from the botched pronunciation of a memoir by French new-wave icon Louis Malle. For a director who takes so liberally from his influences, the operating principle was right there in the championship. Reservoir Dogs eventually found its audience on dwelling video, so much as to inspire legions of Mr. Pinks to effort to pass off observational monologues equally personal philosophy. Information technology is, after all, a film built on words—a heist motion-picture show that dares not to evidence us the heist, its stakes driven past urgent conversations and steered with an eager knife. —Mahoney

11. Rushmore

Information technology's been more than two decades since Wes Anderson debuted his coming-of-historic period comedy classic, the tale of hostage teen Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman) who tries his mitt at everything, isn't especially proficient at anything, and finds himself—in his heed, if no i else's—in a love triangle with a rich businessman named Herman Blume (Beak Murray) and a schoolhouse teacher named Rosemary Cross (Olivia Williams). It'due south dry out and funny. It's also securely nighttime and twisted. Consider: After Rosemary remarks that she likes fish, Max tries to build an unauthorized aquarium on the schoolhouse's baseball field. When she says her deceased married man had "more creativity in one fingernail," a lovesick Max angrily retorts, "i dead fingernail." In some other ill-conceived ploy, he shows up at her window in a rainstorm, covered in imitation blood, pretending to have been striking by a motorcar. He's a loner who gets expelled from his tony individual academy, relentlessly stalks a widow, has endless delusions of grandeur, lies about everything to everyone (including himself), and secures a stockpile of dynamite. It'southward actually a motion-picture show about a horror villain, which is delightful. —Gonzalez

10. Office Infinite

You never forget the first time yous see a printer get murdered. Office Space—much like the other Mike Gauge movie on this listing, Idiocracy—was partially ignored upon its release because it was too ahead of its time. Through protagonist Peter, the movie pinpoints the growing ennui of a modernistic gild plagued by applied science and desk jobs—yet information technology was made viii years before the iPhone came out. It's a humbly made pic that became a generational text. Its unflinching honesty is office of the reason why; the other role is that it'south just endlessly quotable—"two chicks at the same fourth dimension"; "the O face"; Michael Bolton; and in a give-and-take, "Yyyyyyyyyyyyeah." —Gruttadaro

9. Heathers

"The question of, 'Practise y'all think the movie could be fabricated today?' is ever kind of amusing," Heathers screenwriter Daniel Waters told Glamour about his flirty and murderous 1989 high school picture. "Because it'south not like it could really exist made then either. It was kind of outrageous for its time." Indeed, when Heathers—an extra-night one-act that featured a crimson scrunchie and Christian Slater's eyebrows and wove together the auras of both John Hughes and John Waters—debuted in theaters, it was fucked gently with a chainsaw, so to speak, earning barely over a million bucks. But with its mix of startling crime scenes, rude social commentary, big fits, and mean girls, the film took off once it hit VHS. How very! Elements of the movie, already unsettling at the fourth dimension, take not improved with historic period, from its coincidental homophobia to its foreshadowing of today's acts of school violence. And nonetheless in that location's an overarching timelessness to its "LIFE SUCKS" bulletin that makes much of the motion picture still resonate. "Well, I guess I picked the wrong time to be a man being," says Winona Ryder's grapheme, a rare non-Heather named Veronica, sarcastically. But is there ever really a right time? —Baker

8. Monty Python & the Holy Grail

Only inexperienced filmmakers would accept had the audacity to try to make a medieval epic on a budget of £200,000, much of it chipped in by British rock stars in search of tax breaks. The Monty Python Terrys (Gilliam and Jones) were rookie directors when they made Holy Grail, and it shows. So do the budget constraints that led to the troupe adopting clopping coconuts instead of horses, a borrowed bloody rabbit, and an arrest scene that replaced a pricey large boxing. Despite the salaries slashed and corners cutting, the project ran out of money, forcing the Pythons to finish the motion-picture show however they could. (One establishing shot was achieved past holding up a page ripped from a volume, with an out-of-frame candle conferring a shimmering haze.) Merely the budget cuts were just flesh wounds, and the obvious concessions to the seat-of-the-pants product process only enhanced the absurdity of the script. Holy Grail had its detractors when it was released, merely the inspired silliness of the shrubbery-craving Knights of Ni, the Bridge of Decease exchange almost the airspeed of swallows, the indefatigable Blackness Knight, and a dozen other brilliant bits presently cemented its status every bit a contender for one-act GOAT. —Lindbergh

7. Eraserhead

Before David Lynch had a sizable following for his work and could corral ascendant movie stars, he fabricated Eraserhead. A picture show scraped together with funding from the American Film Plant when Lynch was a student—and after that coin ran out, he took a paper road for The Wall Street Journal—Eraserhead is equally bizarre as it is inscrutable. Taking identify in some unnamed industrial hellscape, Lynch's start feature-length movie concerns a meek label printer named Henry Spencer (Jack Nance), whose girlfriend gives birth to a deformed infant that looks like a cross between E.T. and a monitor lizard. Anyone hoping to find answers in Lynch's movie is fighting a losing boxing; instead, Eraserhead is best appreciated as a disturbingly assured debut whose traces tin can be found in the rest of the auteur's oeuvre. From the ambient sound design to the uncompromising body horror to its creeping sense of dread, Eraserhead is pure, unfiltered Lynch—and the ultimate cult moving-picture show. —Surrey

half dozen. Moisture Hot American Summer

It'southward almost like someone from 2015 made a list of all the most famous comic actors and and so put them in a motion picture that came out more than a decade earlier. From Paul Rudd to Amy Poehler to Bradley Cooper to Elizabeth Banks, David Wain'due south Moisture Hot American Summertime is loaded. How was this not the biggest moving picture of 2001? Well, part of the reason why is because information technology struggled to find a distributor and was released in less than 30 cities. Hollywood didn't like the talking can of peas, I guess, simply sometimes Hollywood makes bad choices. That's how a cult movie is born, though, and Wet Hot American Summer was too good to not get a word-of-mouth, discover-it-on-cablevision classic—and also the launchpad from which The Country's zany, highly meta comedy style crashed into the mainstream. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go fondle my sweaters. —Gruttadaro

five. Donnie Darko

Has any pic always sparked more dorm-room debates? Donnie Darko'due south labyrinthine plot deals with the philosophy of time travel, has strong religious overtones, and is anchored past a Holden Caulfield–type protagonist—a horny antihero who'due south smarter than the adults around him, but still has to figure things out for himself. In other words, it's perfect for 18-to-22-twelvemonth-olds who beloved to hear themselves call up out loud. Donnie Darko rewards multiple viewings, and even though writer-director Richard Kelly has gone to great lengths to overexplain the plot in the xx years since its release, no two fans accept exactly the same theory every bit to what it all means, man. (Trust me, I know: While attending college in the 2000s, I was briefly locked in a weeks-long back-and-forth with another educatee in which we both scribbled our thoughts on the moving-picture show on a dry-erase board in the campus commuter lounge. We both thought Donnie was supposed to be a Christ-like figure, merely couldn't concur on much else. We never actually met, and this isn't embarrassing at all to admit.)

My colleague Alan Siegel wrote an excellent oral history on Donnie Darko for its 20th anniversary last week that gets into the many things that make the moving picture great, from the music, to the acting, to Kelly'southward script, to the painstaking attempts to make the fourth dimension-travel stuff all piece of work, to how it overcame its pitiful box-role showing to become a cult classic. Merely even without that history, Donnie Darko is a special movie for people of a certain age—the kind of motion picture that makes you feel smarter than the adults around you, even if you lot still have to effigy things out for yourself. —Sayles

4. This Is Spinal Tap

"Hi, Cleveland!"

"What's wrong with being sexy?"

"These go to 11."

"How could I exit this backside?"

"Y'all can't really dust for vomit."

"Shit Sandwich."

Again, I could do this all day; until the twenty-four hour period I die, I will practice this all twenty-four hour period. This Is Spinal Tap—starring the immortal and armadillo-trouser'd trio of Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer, all of whom cowrote it alongside suavely ballcap'd manager Rob Reiner—is the silliest and stupidest and truest rock 'n' ringlet movie e'er fabricated, and very arguably the funniest picture ever fabricated, total stop. Every last line is quotable enough to be carved into granite. Information technology is a masterpiece in D-modest, the saddest of all keys. It is a majestic tidal moving ridge of lukewarm water. In that location is none more than black. It is a monolith worthy of, aye, Stonehenge. Yeah, I'k still doing this. No, I'll never finish. —Harvilla

3. Dazed and Confused

I was way also young to appreciate Dazed and Confused when it came out, and I saw it late plenty that my introduction to the film was through jokes about how two-time Cy Immature winner Tim Lincecum looked a niggling like Mitch Kramer. In the intervening 15 or then years, David Wooderson had been elevated to near-Burgundarian levels of moving-picture show quotability and nearly 2-thirds of its teen bandage had gone on to meaning careers in Boob tube and film. Non but Matthew McConaughey and Ben Affleck, but Milla Jovovich, Cole Hauser, Parker Posey, Joey Lauren Adams, Anthony Rapp, Adam Goldberg—by the time I was in college, Dazed and Dislocated was like a high school yearbook for every famous person from the early on 2000s.

By now, as much as information technology's memorialized the summer of 1976 in which information technology was set up, it seems almost equally planted in 1993, and you lot can encounter its tentacles in every 24-hour high school party moving picture that followed, from Can't Hardly Wait to Superbad to Booksmart. Information technology's hard to believe it was e'er just a pocket-size-budget indie comedy, rather than what information technology'southward grown into. —Baumann

2. The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Of class the friend who first showed me The Rocky Horror Pic Show was the youngest of five. Information technology'due south why that videotape, with those large, cherry, glossy lips on its box, was floating around her house's grody, shag-rugged den in the outset place. It's perchance also why her mom never seemed to intendance that two tweens were in full thrall to a tantalizing and weird-every bit-hell movie described by Roger Ebert as "a horror-rock-transvestite-army camp-omnisexual-musical parody." There was murder-past-pickaxe, and the deflowering of Susan Sarandon, and catchy, horny tunes. And my memory forever links all of it to that wonderfully lawless habitation.

Such meta-awareness is part and parcel of the Rocky Horror feel. This isn't a movie you sentinel, information technology's a work you closely encounter. Originally a stage product in London, the film premiered with a whimper but plant its forever foothold near a year after thanks to vibrant, absurd, interactive midnight showings that bear on to this twenty-four hour period. Tim Curry, who stars as the hirsute, lingerie-clad Dr. Frank-N-Furter, told NPR that he once met the tardily Princess Diana, who mentioned the film. "I'm sure that you haven't seen it," Curry replied politely, to which Diana said: "Oh, aye. Information technology quite completed my education." I've never felt more than similar royalty. —Bakery

ane. The Large Lebowski

Fun fact: The beginning time I saw The Large Lebowski, my parents had rented it sight unseen for a family movie night with my blood brother (and so 8) and me (so 14). They were and so subjected to weeks of their children crowing "shut the fuck upwardly, Donnie!" and "shomer fucking Shabbos!" around the house. In that location was a time when not everyone knew what this movie was; that seems hard to believe at present.

The saga of the Dude (Jeff Bridges) wasn't exactly lost on a young teenager, just repeat viewings—and The Big Lebowski demands repeat viewings—reveal a picture show that'south shrewder and more incessantly quotable than its most outrageous moments. (No comment on The Jesus Rolls , its unsanctioned spinoff.) The Dude's laziness is almost defiantly noble when held up against the malevolent industry of the tycoon who shares his legal name; the fraternal bond between he and haunted veteran Walter (John Goodman) is a scrap of decency in a cluttered globe. My colleague Adam Nayman has written extensively on Lebowski'due south pregnant and lasting impact, yet it remains as instantly appealing as it was more than a decade agone on my parents' couch. Fifty-fifty when the Coen Brothers are doing arctic stoner drag, they can nevertheless make a moving picture that'southward tight as a drum. —Alison Herman

An earlier version of this piece misstated the year Slap Shot was released.

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Source: https://www.theringer.com/movies/2021/1/25/22244344/cult-movies-ranking-top-50